CO EROLA FRANCESC

A unique place - three railways each with a different track gauge and a different electrification - we arrived on the broad gauge train from Barcelona and then had lunch in the café nearby, very nice. Everything worked (and the weather was ok) - the station is not in the most scenic area, but all good

A little interchange on the relaxed sleeper route between Barcelona and Paris. High up in a tiny Pyrénées commune, and surely among the most remote of international train stations. Frequent local trains from the Catalonian capital connect here with the daily sleeper to Paris for as little as €33, or around €50 in a berth. As the Intercités de Nuit service curves past Andorra a few kilometres further on, you will be treated to a stunning view from the highest point on any normal standard-gauge railway in Europe, 1,562m above sea level.

A small little trainstation. Everyone here was very polite and trying to help me out on things like booking tickets or finding the right train. There is a small little relay shop inside where you get coffee and a croissant as well as some news papers. Nearby you'll find a little bistrot. There a ticket machines and if open, a sncf desk.

Terminal station for the spanish railroads and connections with the international railway size, the european standarized size for the rail tracks shared along all the european countries over Spain that'll go for free in this. The Rail Station is placed in the mountains that are the natural border between these two nations (Spain and France). You can pick up and aboard the night train to Paris-Austerlitz station

Desparately missing a couple of key services for the international travellers frequently passing through; 1) A closely located supermarket. 2) Luggage storage lockers. There is a small shop but was shut each time we passed through. It also looks more like magazines & confectionary, rather than bread, etc that travellers would wish to take on the night train (which itself has no buffet car or food/drink facilities on board). The station had a clean, free and open (i.e. not locked shut like so many others) toilet. The small cafe next door does a great trade from people from the yellow train and those taking the night train, but it is targetted at eat-in meals rather than take-aways. We dragged our suitcases a couple km up & down hill to reach the supermarket which re-opened at 17:00, then back in time for night train departure. But that small local supermarket had a very limited selection, not the gourmet selection that make normal French supermarkets so attractive. Plenty of raw meat in the butchers cabinets, but not so useful for the night train!!

One star for not letting spanish (RENFE) train drivers use the crew rest room to have their MANDATORY REST at the INTERNATIONAL station because SNCF doesn't feel like it. We all can see who the humans are and who behaves like irrational animals. Not letting them have their rest means that the drivers have to run their train back to La Molina or Puigcerdá station to be able to rest. And if there are passengers connecting from France to Spain, they have to be taken by taxi to La Molina or Puigcerdá to board the train. So yeah, SNCF and their clown train drivers always causing trouble to spanish trains for absolutely no reason.

This station is pretty much useless as a frontier station. The train from Toulouse arrives 3 minutes after the connection train over the border to Spain and on to Barcelona leaves!! Then it’s a 3 hour wait for the next train. No shop open at the station and not anywhere to leave your luggage so you can go for a walk and kill some time. Couple of benches around the platforms. The station is old and worn on the outside. Very disappointing experience for the sake of 5 minutes had to wait 3 hours. No joined up thinking between Spain and France.

Starting point for 12-hour sleeper car to Paris.